


The Shepherd - Aftermath

by Flanker27_UK



Series: Strike's Shepherd [2]
Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-19 13:02:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20657693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flanker27_UK/pseuds/Flanker27_UK
Summary: Strike and Anstis investigate Will Shepherd's death and try to make sense of what happened





	The Shepherd - Aftermath

Anstis & Strike walked away from their meeting with Major Fitzgerald not looking at each other, not speaking, each lost in his own thoughts

Finally

“Fuck, Rich, I need a drink”

Anstis nodded and the Redcaps made their way to the NAAFI bar, it was lunchtime and just open.

“Two Beers & Whisky’s please, hungry? Two pie and chips as well”

Strike ordered the universally available Army comfort food on his comrade’s nod

They sat down, chinked the whisky glasses, knocked back the spirits and both took a long gulp of the beer. Strike sat forward and leaned close to Anstis, speaking quietly so as not to be overheard

“We were both there, we both know that guy saved our bacon, we would both be casualties if he hadn’t turned up, yet we’re going to investigate his death tomorrow. When he was ripping up the Ragheads and saving our asses he was supposedly dying in a firefight over a hundred miles away. It makes no kind of sense. OK let’s approach this like the investigators that they’re paying us to be”

“How do we know it was Will Shepherd that saved us, he told us his name, he could have been anybody. The Regiment don’t tend to go into action with rank slides and name badges on display so what he told us about himself is all we have to go on”

“But the Major acknowledged his name & you saw him when we described the guy that saved us, you can’t fake how the blood drained from his face, the guy looked like a corpse”

Anstis sat quietly, Strike could almost see the cogs going round in his head. During the evenings in the bar the pair had exchanged war stories of the cases they had worked and Strike knew Rich had worked some truly appalling crimes in London.

“So, physical evidence, I’ve still got some of the magazines Will gave us, do they have serial numbers, we could cross reference who they were issued to”

“Sorry mate they hand magazines out like sweeties, they’re only interested in the weapons, mags are really just disposable, might be able to get some fingerprints off it though, stick what we have in evidence bags just in case”

“What about the Taliban bodies?”

“They will have all been squirreled away and buried by now, give them their due they respect their dead like us”

“So what do we know, we were down to less than 100 rounds each, they were swarming us, then Will, we’ll call him that till we find otherwise, opens up from 20 yards away with his Gimpy. How in god’s name did he get there without us spotting him? FFS I know these guys are good, but there was no cover, we’d been lucky where we landed so should have seen him crawling along the ditch. Bloody hell we were expecting a flanking move along there and had been watching that area like Hawks. Next why did he have a Bergan stuffed with L85 Mags? He was using a GPMG after all, different calibre. If we didn’t know better we would think he had arrived specifically to rescue us and as no one knew we were there how the hell did that happen?”

A shout from the counter then interrupted the soldiers, Strike went up and collected their food and came back with 2 more tins of beer in his pockets. They tucked into their meals and polished off the beer. Heading back to the RMP Office (well container really, but at least it had air-con)

They grabbed one of the small cubicles and planned their investigation, checking out a standard KIA investigation kit.

Strike got on the phone to logistics to see if he could organise transport

Rich heard Strike’s end of the conversation and realised things weren’t going swimmingly.

“Well?”

“Seems ours was the tenth Landrover totalled in the past few days, seems it’s a new tactic from the insurgents so only traffic in escorted convoys for the time being. So we’re on the next supply convoy to Firebase Delta, leaving at 04:00 tomorrow. That’s the good news, bad news is we don’t have our own transport, got seats in the cab of a DROPS wagon”

“Early night then” grinned Anstis “and here I was hoping to take in a show or go out to dinner”

03:20 and the SIB Sergeants were walking along the row of vehicles drawing up for the high speed trip to the firebase. There were 3 DROPS lorries loaded up with all the supplies needed to keep the base secure, including important articles like some beer, new DVDs and the mail from home.

“Arkwright” called out Strike

“Here” came the response from the second truck in the rank. A small, well tiny, figure came from the front of the vehicle. The two soldiers eyed each other up, Strike over six foot three of toned muscle looked down at the five foot two girl who was their chauffer for the next 12 hours or so. The RLC girl looked absolutely terrified of having two Redcaps with her.

Strike gave her one of his winning smiles

“Relax we’re just passengers, I’m Cormoran and my oppo is Rich, we’re human really, don’t worry about the Red Berets, we’re SIB, so what’s your name? I’m not calling you Private Arkwright all day”

You could almost see the tension leave the girl

“I’m Janice” the girl replied with a broad Leeds accent, Strike had always found the Yorkshire accent particularly endearing 

“Anything we can do to help?”

“No I’ve just loaded the pallets so we’re ready to go if we get into a fight though best bale as quick as you can I’m carrying a load of Javelins, Grenades and Ammo as well as the ordinary supplies”

“Roger that, though avoiding a fight would be nice we’ve had our ration for the week”

“Oh are you the guys who got hit on the road the day before yesterday then?”

“Yep that would be us”

“Should be OK today we’ve got four of the new Jackals for escort and they pack a lot more firepower than the Landrovers”

“OK Gents hop up into the cab & let’s get ready to roll, I’ll be on my night vision equipment till it gets light and headlights make too good a target”.

Eventually the convoy set off winding its way through all the anti truck bomb obstacles and hit the road to the Firebase that was due for resupply today. Janice concentrated hard for the first hour or so, probably a combination of nerves with 2 MPs in her cab and the concentration needed to drive with night vision. As it got light though she relaxed, removed her headset and stowed in its case.

Strike then asked her a few questions and the two Redcaps found the journey passed quickly as they followed the life story of Janice Arkwright, 22, from Otley, her two brothers, the love of her life, they never found his name, unless it was “That Bastard”, who she’d caught with his trousers round his ankles and her ex best friends legs around his waist. But it was the best thing he’d done for her as she’d quit her job in a shop and gone into the recruiting office the next day. Now she could drive anything in the RLC and was hoping to make Corporal after this tour._ I bet she does as well_ thought Strike impressed with the feisty young lady

After the gruelling 12 hour trip they arrived at the base, speeding in through the heavy steel gates and parking as far apart as possible.

“Thanks for the lift Janice” They got a quick wave but the young soldier was already working with the inbuilt crane to drop her pallets off the truck and the guys on the ground were busy moving the items into the magazine and distributing the supplies as quickly as possible, it would not be a good time for the Taliban to drop a few mortar rounds into the compound.

They quickly tracked down the base CO and explained what they required, they needed to check Corporal Shepherd’s personal effects, also they needed to see the body before it was shipped back to Bastion & onward home for an autopsy and burial with full military honours.

The Major they were interviewing seemed somewhat surprised at the request to see the body

“Err ok, it looks like you haven’t been fully briefed on this incident have you? I’ll get the medic to show you the, err, the body and then we can continue our discussions”

Strike and Anstis weren’t perturbed by the thought viewing the body, it was unfortunately a pretty common occurrence in their line of work.

They followed the medic to the shipping container, with chiller unit, which was the makeshift morgue and waited while the body was pulled from storage.

Strike and Anstis looked at the body, looked at each other then back at the body, all that was on the stretcher was a right leg, gore and smashed from below the knee, incongruous with a sock and boot still attached.

“Right, OK thanks, let’s get back and interview the CO then”

“Fuck Rich, poor bastard was blown to pieces, there goes any idea of matching fingerprints”

They sat and took notes as the CO explained what had happened, the base had come under heavy mortar fire and Will Shepherd and his buddy, “Soldier R” was all the CO would reveal, had slipped out under cover of darkness to try and infiltrate the enemy lines with the objective of wiping out the Taliban Mortar team when they set up the following day. It was unclear what had happened but it seems that after lying under cover for most of the day they had spotted, mid afternoon, the insurgents wheeling a Soviet made Mortar along a gully with the intention plainly of dropping shells into the compound. The two soldiers had crawled slowly forward with Soldier R taking point and Will following behind with his GPMG. By sheer bad luck Will had crawled over an old Soviet magnetic anti-tank mine that must have been there from the old conflict, there was enough metal in his machine gun to trigger it. The leg was all that they could find of the body.

Strike filled in the appropriate parts of the incident form, it seemed pretty clear that the cause of death was just old fashioned bad luck.

“OK let’s take a look at his possessions, has anyone sanitised them yet?” It was protocol to remove anything that could cause offense to the next of kin, pornography, love letters not from the soldiers wife, that sort of thing. “It’s been checked and nothing needed removing” was the response

They both read through the letters, Will had a 3 year old daughter who was obviously the apple of his eye and a Wife who patently adored him. _Glad I don’t have to deliver the news to her, I fucking hate that job _Went through Cormoran’s thoughts.

Anstis went very still, staring at the photograph in his hand, “Corm”

He offered the picture to Strike, it was a picture of Will Shepherd, on his wedding day, beaming with joy, his beautiful, blonde, wife laughing and holding his arm. The man staring at them from the picture was the same man that they had last seen saving their lives in a dusty ditch on the Lashkargah road. Just to confirm it Rich passed him another picture, the same man stared back at them cuddling a little girl aged 2 or 3 with startling strawberry blonde hair.

“Fuck, it’s just not possible, how could he be saving us, and blown to pieces here at the same time”

“There has got to be some sort of logical explanation, there just has to be”

Anstis looked at Strike “Are you a religious man Corm, do you believe in Karma?”

Strike didn’t answer straight away staring at nothing

“I didn’t Rich, but this, what possible explanation could there be?”

“Well we’ll have to concoct something or they’ll think we’re both mad”.

Report finished they updated the base CO and checked out what transport was due back to camp Bastion. They’d missed the chance to return with the convoy that they had arrived on. There was a pair of Vikings due to go back in the morning, they’d been replaced by two of the Jackals delivered the previous day so they booked a slot.

They spent a restless night under canvas with occasional mortar bombs dropping around the base and bursts of gunfire so they were both tired when after eating a RatPack breakfast they joined the Viking that they were hitching a lift back on.

If the Squaddie driving the vehicle was pleased to have company then he was disappointed. Both SIB officers seemed lost in their own thoughts.

Anstis had bagged the more comfy seat in the front and Strike was sitting crosswise behind him. He was looking idly through the windscreen watching a broken down Afghan truck on the side of the road when like a smack in the face he heard and felt Will Shepherd shout “STRIKE, BOMB” 

Strike didn’t think he just shouted “BOMB” and grabbed Anstis by the scruff of his neck and dragged him into the back of the vehicle, just as the front of the Viking dissolved in a blaze of white light.

He groaned and looked round saw Anstis lying next to him his face a bubbling black mess then the agony of his right leg hit him, it was overwhelming, like his foot and leg were being crushed under a lorry, then the pain got too much and everything went black.


End file.
